George Wendt, who played beloved barfly Norm on 'Cheers' and found
another home onstage, dies at 76
[May 21, 2025]
By MARK KENNEDY
NEW YORK (AP) — George Wendt, an actor with an Everyman charm who played
the affable, beer-loving barfly Norm on the hit 1980s TV comedy “Cheers”
and later crafted a stage career that took him to Broadway in “Art,”
“Hairspray” and “Elf,” has died. He was 76.
Wendt's family said he died early Tuesday morning, peacefully in his
sleep while at home, according to the publicity firm The Agency Group.
“George was a doting family man, a well-loved friend and confidant to
all of those lucky enough to have known him,” the family said in a
statement. “He will be missed forever.” The family has requested privacy
during this time.
Despite a long career of roles onstage and on TV, it was as gentle and
henpecked Norm Peterson on “Cheers” that he was most associated, earning
six straight Emmy Award nominations for best supporting actor in a
comedy series from 1984-89.
The series was centered on lovable losers in a Boston bar and starred
Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Rhea Perlman, Kelsey Grammer, John
Ratzenberger, Kirstie Alley and Woody Harrelson. It would spin off
another megahit in “Frasier” and was nominated for an astounding 117
Emmy Awards, winning 28 of them.
Wendt, who spent six years in Chicago’s renowned Second City improv
troupe before sitting on a barstool at the place where everybody knows
your name, didn't have high hopes when he auditioned for “Cheers.”
“My agent said, ‘It’s a small role, honey. It’s one line. Actually, it’s
one word.’ The word was ‘beer.’ I was having a hard time believing I was
right for the role of ‘the guy who looked like he wanted a beer.’ So I
went in, and they said, ‘It’s too small a role. Why don’t you read this
other one?’ And it was a guy who never left the bar,” Wendt told GQ in
an oral history of “Cheers.”
‘Cheers’ and a barstool
“Cheers” premiered on Sept. 30, 1982, and spent the first season with
low ratings. NBC president Brandon Tartikoff championed the show, and it
was nominated for an Emmy for best comedy series in its first season.
Some 80 million people would tune in to watch its series finale 11 years
later.
Wendt became a fan favorite in and outside the bar — his entrances were
cheered with a warm “Norm!” — and his wisecracks always landed. “How’s a
beer sound, Norm?” he would be asked by the bartender. “I dunno. I
usually finish them before they get a word in,” he’d respond.
While the beer the cast drank on set was nonalcoholic, Wendt and other
“Cheers” cast members have admitted they were tipsy on May 20, 1993,
when they watched the show’s final episode then appeared together on
“The Tonight Show” in a live broadcast from the Bull and Finch Pub in
Boston, the bar that inspired the series.
″We had been drinking heavily for two hours but nobody thought to feed
us,” Wendt told the Beaver County Times of Pennsylvania in 2009. “We
were nowhere near as cute as we thought we were.”
Perlman, who regularly served Wendt on “Cheers,” in a statement called
him “the sweetest, kindest man I ever met. It was impossible not to like
him.
"As Carla, I was often standing next to him, as Norm always took the
same seat at the end of the bar, which made it easy to grab him and beat
the crap out of him at least once a week. I loved doing it and he loved
pretending it didn’t hurt. What a guy! I’ll miss him more than words can
say.”
After “Cheers,” Wendt starred in his own short-lived sitcom “The George
Wendt Show” — “too bad he had to step out of Norm and down so far from
that corner stool for his debut stanza,” sniffed Variety — and had guest
spots on TV shows like “The Ghost Whisperer,” “Harry’s Law” and “Portlandia.”
He was part of a brotherhood of Chicago Everymen who gathered over
sausage and beers and adored “Da Bears” on “Saturday Night Live.” In
2023, he competed on “The Masked Singer.”
[to top of second column]
|
Rhea Perlman, from left, Kelsey Grammar, Ted Danson, John
Ratzenberger, George Wendt present the award for outstanding writing
for a comedy series during the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday,
Jan. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP
Photo/Chris Pizzello, file)
 Second career on stage
But he found steady work onstage: Wendt slipped on Edna Turnblad’s
housecoat in Broadway’s “Hairspray” beginning in 2007, and was in
the Tony Award-winning play “Art” in New York and London.
He starred in the national tour of “12 Angry Men” and appeared in a
production of David Mamet’s “Lakeboat.” He also starred in regional
productions of “Death of a Salesman,” “The Odd Couple,” “Never Too
Late” and “Funnyman.”
“A, it’s by far the most fun, but B, I seem to have been kicked out
of television,” Wendt told the Kansas City Star in 2011. “I
overstayed my welcome. But theater suits me.”
Wendt had an affinity for playing Santa Claus, donning the famous
red outfit in the stage musical “Elf” on Broadway in 2017, the TV
movie “Santa Baby” with Jenny McCarthy in 2006 and in the doggie
Disney video “Santa Buddies” in 2009. He also played Father
Christmas for TV specials by Larry the Cable Guy and Stephen
Colbert.
“I think it just proves that if you stay fat enough and get old
enough, the offers start rolling in,” the actor joked to the AP in
his Broadway dressing room.
Born in Chicago, Wendt attended Campion High School, a Catholic
boarding school in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and then Notre Dame,
where he rarely went to class and was kicked out. He transferred to
Rockhurst University in Kansas City and graduated, after majoring in
economics.
He found a home at Second City in both the touring company and the
mainstage.
“I think comedy is my long suit, for sure. My approach to comedy is
usually not full-bore clownish,” he told the AP. “If you’re trying
to showboat or step outside, it doesn’t always work. There are
certain performers who almost specialize in doing that, and they do
it really well. But that’s not my approach.”
Cheers for beer
He had a lifelong association with beer. He had his first taste as
an 8-year-old and got drunk at 16, at the World’s Fair in New York.
His beer knowledge was poured into the book ″Drinking With George: A
Barstool Professional’s Guide to Beer,” co-written with Jonathan
Grotenstein. One line: “Will Rogers once said he never met a man he
didn’t like. I feel the same about beer.”
Part autobiography, part beer drinker’s guide, the book had Wendt’s
conversational tone and lists, such as “Five Good Bar Bets,” ″77
Toasts from Around the World” and ”(More Than) 100 Ways to Say That
You’re Drunk,” which alphabetically lists 126 synonyms from
“annihilated” through “zozzled.”
He is survived by his wife, Second City alum Bernadette Birkett, who
voiced Norm’s never-seen not-so better half, Vera, on “Cheers”; his
children, Hilary, Joe and Daniel; and his stepchildren, Joshua and
Andrew.
“From his early days with The Second City to his iconic role as Norm
on ‘Cheers,’ George Wendt’s work showcased how comedy can create
indelible characters that feel like family. Over the course of 11
seasons, he brought warmth and humor to one of television’s most
beloved roles,” National Comedy Center Executive Director Journey
Gunderson said in a statement.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
